by Lamb, Wally
Recalling that conversation, the old doubt creeps back into my thinking. We’re a mismatch, Viveca and me. Why in the world are we getting married? And why Three Rivers where my old life was? . . . Because we can’t get married in New York. And because when we visited Orion that time, she fell in love with the place. The deer, the babbling brook out back. And the painting—the Josephus Jones she’s talked about incessantly. No, that’s not fair. This isn’t about business. It’s about us, about Viveca meeting my kids. Oh god, I hope the dinner goes well tonight, never mind the wedding tomorrow. . . .
I would have invited Hector to tonight’s get-together—Minnie and her boy, too, if they’d wanted to come—but I didn’t think Viveca would want that. So instead I’ve reserved them rooms at the Best Western on Route 32. I’ll give them a little dinner money, too. There’s an Applebee’s next door and one of those buffet places just down the road in that strip mall. There’s an arcade there, too, now that I think of it. Africa will like that. And maybe Hector can check out the casino tonight if he wants to. I can leave him the car. Ride over to the restaurant with Andrew and the girls.
Speaking of who—whom?—maybe they’ve called. I grab my cell phone out of the car and check to see if they’ve left me a message. But no. They must still be on the road. I try Marissa’s number. She’s the one who’s always got her cell phone on. . . . But not this time. That’s odd. Oh well, they’re probably traveling through a dead zone. The service around here can be iffy. At the beep, I leave her a message. “Hi, honey. It’s Mom. Just wondering how you guys are doing. Call me when you hear this. Okay?”
Next, I try Viveca. She drove up and checked in at Bella Linda last night because she wanted to go over all the last-minute details with them. She’s a little out of her element, not dealing with New Yorkers—a little untrusting that a staff at a rural inn is going to deliver on her expectations. Well, she was the one who wanted quaint, east-of-the-river Connecticut. Rustic décor, sheep grazing in the meadow. If the service is a little more laid-back than Manhattan or Westport, then so be it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. How’s everything going?”
“Fine, sweetheart. Except for the flowers. I distinctly told that florist we wanted calla lilies for the tables, but he said he couldn’t get them from his supplier, so he substituted hydrangeas. He got a little defensive when I told them that just wasn’t acceptable, so he’s called around and located what we wanted from a different company. He’s assured me they’ll be delivered in time tomorrow.” Well, okay. Now she’ll have her calla lilies. Why is she giggling?
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just a little tipsy, and Lorenzo’s sitting here being Lorenzo. He drove up last night, and we’re having lunch. You know what a naughty boy he can be. He insisted that we had to have champagne with our salads. Are you at the house yet?” I tell her no, still on the way. Tell her about Africa’s having to come along last minute.
“Oh, dear,” she says. I can probably guess what she’s thinking: that it’s not exactly a children’s affair. That she told me to hire a car service instead of involving our help. “Well, when you get in, let me know and we’ll drive over there. I’m dying to show Lorenzo the Josephus Jones. He says he and Marcus might be interested in it, provided we can get your ex to budge on selling it to me. What’s the address? Wait a sec. Let me get something to write it down.”
Oh, shit. That was Orion’s one condition: that she not come over to the house. It seems silly, but I’ve given him my word. “You know what, Viveca? Why don’t you two stay put and let me bring it over there? I uh . . . I haven’t been to Bella Linda since they renovated. I’d like to see what they’ve done.”
“All right then. What? Wait a minute, Anna. What did you say, Lorenzo?” More laughter. “Lorenzo said to tell you that we discovered a creamery down the road from here that has homemade peach ice cream.” I know the place she’s talking about: Blue Slope Dairy, the place with the petting zoo the kids loved. “I’ve warned him that it’s probably got so much butterfat in it, he’s going to ruin his boyish figure. Wait a minute, sweetheart. What, Lorenzo? . . . Oh, yes, all right. He says he wants to show you his new tattoo. It’s a sunburst circling his navel. Marcus has a matching one. They got them in Chinatown.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s been lifting up his shirt all morning to show everyone. The little bumpkin at the front desk got so flustered when he showed her, I thought she was going to need smelling salts, poor thing. Of course, if he keeps eating ice cream while he’s here, those abs he’s so proud of are going to disappear.”
When I look up, I see Minnie hurrying Africa back toward the car. Good god, what has she bought him now? “Okay, I’d better go now, Viveca. I’ll call you when we get to the house, and then I’ll have Hector drive me over.”
“And don’t forget to bring the painting,” she says.
“I won’t.”
Minnie swings the back door open and orders Africa to get in back with me and her, and to sit in the middle. When he objects, she warns him not to give her any lip. He’s holding one of those waffle cones—two scoops of candy-studded pink ice cream. “That’s a big cone for someone your size,” I tell him. “What kind did you get?”
“Bubble gum.”
“Oh, my. Is it good?” He nods. The sickening sweet aroma of his treat fills the backseat. Minnie orders him to buckle his seat belt, and as he struggles to do so one-handed, his ice cream comes perilously close to falling off the cone and into my lap. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing at!” Minnie says. She’s armed herself with an inch-thick stack of napkins. “And don’t slobber on yourself. I only got two sets of clothes for you, one for today and one for tomorrow. I better not have to be washing out no laundry in the sink.”
Hector starts the car and heads out of the parking lot. That cloying bubble gum smell is the same as the amoxicillin I used to have to give my kids when they got ear infections—when I’d be cooped up all day in the house with them, spooning that stuff into them and fighting to keep the thermometer in their mouths. I crack open my window to let in some fresh air. Close my eyes and see, again, that pediatrician’s waiting room. What was his name? Dr. McNally—that was it. God, I hated going there. Whoever was sick that visit would sit on my lap, clinging to me, while whoever wasn’t sick yet played on the floor with all those germy toys and runny-nosed other children. Home again, I’d be managing the sick bay all day long, and then Orion wouldn’t get back from work until after I’d gotten the kids down for the night. He’d sit there at the kitchen table, eating his warmed-up supper and looking through the mail and the magazines, nodding and half-listening as I stood there, complaining about what a hellish day I’d had. I can only remember one time when he called in and stayed home with the kids when they were sick—the time I got called for jury duty. Sitting in that courthouse all day, among the pool of prospective jurors, was like a vacation. I remember how disappointed I was when, at the last minute, they settled the case and dismissed us. And when I got home, Orion was so put out about his long day tending to their needs, he’d acted like I was supposed to award him a medal for valor. . . . I open my eyes again and look down at my hands. They’re fists.
We’re not even back on the highway yet, and Africa’s already fighting a losing battle against his cone, licking and slurping at the melting ice cream that’s dripping onto his shorts. Minnie’s looking out the window, watching the stores go by, oblivious. Oblivious, too, to his just having bitten off the pointy end of his cone and begun sucking out the ice cream from the bottom. Andrew used to do the same thing, and it would drive me up the wall.
Andrew: I’m excited to see him, but a lot of my apprehension about the next few days centers around him—how he’ll react to Viveca, and she to him if his disapproval is obvious. And now he’ll have Lorenzo to deal with, too, I suppose. Lorenzo’s such a flirt. Why did he, of all people, have to drive up here early? . . . I just hop
e Andrew didn’t feel he had to come because she sent him those plane tickets. If she had only told me she was planning to do that, I would have said it was a bad idea. His conservative Christian fiancée had a ticket, too, but she isn’t coming. Is she busy, or is she boycotting?
Hector eases back into the flow of traffic on the interstate. Africa hasn’t paid me much attention on this trip, but now that he’s riding in back, he’s staring at me. Wearing his ice cream mustache and studying me with those big dark eyes of his. Instead of returning my smile, he asks me how old I am. “How old do you think?” I say. “Take a guess.”
“Eighty?”
His mother swivels back toward him, mortified. “Miz Anna ain’t no eighty! Thass rude! You say you’re sorry.”
“It’s fine, Minnie.” I give him a smile. Tell him I’m fifty-two.
“How come you just gettin’ married if you old?”
Minnie frowns and opens her mouth again, but I hold up my hand to stop her. “Well, honey, I was married before, but I got divorced. So now I’m marrying somebody else.”
“Him?” he asks, pointing up at Hector.
“No, no, the woman I live with. The one your mother works for.”
“Oh,” he says. “You got kids?”
“Yes, I do. Hector and I were just talking about—”
“They got Xbox?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Probably not, though. They’re grown-ups. My son is in the army.”
His eyes widen. “How many bad guys he kill?”
“Well, he doesn’t fight in the wars, honey. He works at a hospital in Texas. Do you know where Texas is?”
He shakes his head. “How come you marrying a lady?”
“Mind your bidness, Africa! Eat your ice cream!”
“No, it’s okay. We’re getting married because we love each other.”
“Oh,” he says. No longer interested, he puts the bottom of his cone to his lips and sucks some more. “Hey!” he protests when his mother yanks it away. “Gimme it back, Mama! It’s mine!”
“You don’t know how to eat a ice cream right, you can go without.” She puts her window down and throws the cone out onto the highway. When Africa begins to cry, she asks him if he wants her to give him something to cry about. Starts swiping at his mouth with her stack of napkins. “Look at them shorts,” she sputters. “You wearin’ more than you ate. You ain’t been nothin’ but trouble this whole trip. I oughta have Mr. Hector pull over and drop you off on the side of the road.” I hold my tongue, but what a horrible thing to say to the boy. Was I ever that rough on my kids?
After Africa stops sniveling, the car becomes quiet except for the hum of the tires on the road. Suddenly, I’m jarred by a memory I wish to god hadn’t resurfaced. . . .
I’m at the wheel up front and the three kids are in back, the baby strapped into her car seat, finally asleep, and Andrew and Ariane on either side of her. They’re peevish, both of them. They’ve been at each other all day, and I’m sick of it. “If you two wake up your sister, you’re going to be sorry you did,” I warn them.
“You’re ugly and stupid,” Ariane tells her brother.
“I know you are, but what am I?”
“Ow!” In the mirror, I see them reaching past their little sister and hitting each other. “Mama! Andrew just scratched me!”
“Goddamn you two!” I slam on the brake. Pull off the road and face them. “I’ve had it with both of you! Get out of the car.” They look at each other, shocked. “You heard me. Out!” And when they obey, I gun it. Glimpse their fear in the rearview mirror. Good! Let them be scared for a few minutes. Maybe that will teach them.
Half a mile down the road, I take a right, and then another. One more and I’ll be back there. But when I pass a secondhand store I’ve never seen before, I brake. Put the car in reverse. The baby’s still asleep, so I get out with the motor running. This is just the kind of place where I’ve found some of the raw materials for my best work. GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! a sign in the window says. I don’t have time to go inside—I have to get back to the twins—but I can at least take a quick look at the stuff that’s out on the sidewalk: used pots and pans, old Life magazines, a rack of clothes, a wooden coat tree. A man comes out and sees me eyeing two hideous-looking animals, dead and stuffed—a weasel of some kind and . . . is it a wolf?
“Coyote,” the man says. “And the other one’s a fisher cat. There used to be plenty of them around here, but you don’t see them much anymore. I can let you have them both for seventy-five bucks. They’re worth more.” When I shake my head, he says okay, fifty then. I tell him I’m in a hurry but that I’ll be back. I run to the car and take off.
Approaching the place where I made them get out, I see a gray station wagon stopped at the side of the road, its directional signal blinking. There’s a man squatting beside them, talking to them. Oh god! Oh no! I slam on the brake, fly out of the car, and run toward them, screaming. “Get away from them! Don’t you dare talk to my kids!” He stands, hurries back to his car, calling over his shoulder that he was only trying to help them. “What kind of mother leaves her children by the side of the road and—”
“Shut up!” I reach them, grab on to them, hold them tightly to me. “Get out of here before I call the police!”
“Someone ought to call the police on you!” he shouts back. Slams his car door and takes off, his back tires spitting up gravel, his signal still blinking.
I was only gone for a few minutes. I only wanted to teach them a lesson. But oh god, what if . . . what if . . . what kind of a mother . . .
I drive away, sobbing. From the backseat, Ariane consoles me. “It’s okay, Mama. I told him you were coming back. We won’t fight anymore.” When I look in the mirror, I see Andrew staring at me, in stunned disbelief still.
Later, sitting at the counter of the five-and-ten, I watch them eat their sundaes. Ask them if they’re going to tell their father. They shake their heads. And when, that weekend Orion spells me and I’m free to go off on one of my hunting expeditions, I drive around, looking for that secondhand shop. When I finally find it and pull up to the front, there’s nothing out on the sidewalk. I get out of the car, look at the sign in the window. There’s a big red ex across the word GOING and, above it, the word GONE. It’s dark inside, but in the pile of stuff that hasn’t yet been cleared out, I see the coyote and the fisher cat. I’m too late. The piece I’ve been imagining for the past three days, constructing in my head and sketching out on paper, will never be made. . . .
My eyes fill with tears. I turn and look out the window so that Minnie won’t see. All she did was make an empty threat, but I actually left them there and drove off. Tried to scare them. Maybe that man who stopped was just trying to help them. I hear him again: What kind of a mother . . . A terrible one, that’s what kind I was. A mother who was angry and resentful and so focused on her art that . . . They deserved someone better—someone as patient and even-keeled as their father. I probably shouldn’t even have had kids. . . . But they turned out all right, didn’t they? Survived my mistakes. Oh god, I can’t wait to see them. Hug them and hear about their lives. Not so much Marissa; I’m caught up on my New York daughter. Sometimes I wish she’d give me less information about what she’s up to. Not so the twins: Andrew, who’s private and closemouthed the way so many men are, and Ariane, who’s always so busy with her work. I’m hungry to see them. To be with the three of them.
“You okay back there, Miss Oh?” Hector asks. Our eyes meet in his rearview mirror. I nod, tell him I’m fine. “You mind if I play some music?”
“No, not at all.”
He turns on the radio and finds a Spanish station. “That too loud?”
“No, no. It sounds nice. Salsa, right?”
He nods, smiles back at me. “This is Victor Manuelle. He’s one of my favorites. Him and Los Van Van. They’re great, too. Nobody makes salsa and merengue music like the Cubans.”
“Is that right?” For the next several miles, we listen
to the music, the commercials in rapid-fire Spanish.
“See that sign, Africa?” I ask the boy. “Can you read what it says?”
He squints. “Three . . . Rivers . . . whassat next word?”
“Wequonnoc,” I tell him.
“Three Rivers, Wequonnoc . . .”
“Nation,” his mother says. “Where your brains at, boy?” She turns to me, shaking her head. “What they teachin’ them at that school anyway?”
“Three Rivers is where we’re going,” I tell Africa, overriding his mother’s embarrassment. “So that means we’re almost there.”
He nods. Sticks his finger in his nose and digs around in there until Minnie bats it away. Maybe Viveca was right. I probably should have just hired a car service. This has been one long, difficult ride.
A few minutes later, it gets worse. Africa begins to whimper. “What now?” his mother asks him.
“My tummy hurts.” When she tells him to sit still and think about something else, he says he can’t. That it really hurts. “Mama, I gon’ be sick!” And sure enough. His head lurches forward and his little belly begins to heave. When I tell Hector to pull over, he nods. Steers into the right lane and then onto the shoulder. But it’s too late. Minnie’s grabbed the big straw bag that she’s packed their clothes in and opened it wide. She shoves Africa’s face down into it and he heaves everything he’s been eating and drinking.
“It’s all right, baby. It’s okay,” she says, wiping his face. “You feel better now?” He nods, rests his head against her bosom, and she takes hold of his small hand and closes her own work-worn hand over it. It’s the first tenderness she’s shown him since we left New York. Hector carries the soiled straw bag around to the back and locks it in the trunk, but the stench lingers. Back on the road again, we ride with the windows open, the wind blowing in our faces.
